Woman leads police on chase from Marina to Morro Bay

A woman who caused a number of disturbances in Marina led authorities on a three-hour high-speed chase that ended with her arrest in Morro Bay on Tuesday, police said.

Authorities described a chase that wound through the streets of Marina, through the Monterey Peninsula and down Highway 1, reaching speeds as high as 90 mph. She weaved in and out of traffic, ran stop signs and stoplights and clipped a California Highway Patrol vehicle, but caused no injuries, authorities said.

Marina police spokesman Bob Nolan said several incidents involving the woman put her on the police radar.

She fueled up at a Marina gas station and didn't pay because she was yelling at the clerk and apparently frightened the employee, he said.

He said she drove up to a residence and started pulling plants out and screaming at a resident, who called police.

She confronted a utility crew on Reindollar Avenue, again screaming and throwing some type of pamphlets at the crew, Nolan said.

She drove onto the CSU Monterey Bay campus, pulled onto a field used for Frisbee golf and again confronted people there, he said.

That's when the chase started, he said.

CSUMB units headed north into Marina after the woman, who was driving a Jeep. She sped down Del Monte Avenue through downtown Marina at speeds up to 80 mph, Nolan said.

The driver headed north to Highway 1, then took off on Nashua Road to Cooper Road and back to Reservation Road, where the California Highway Patrol picked up the chase.

The driver went west on Monterey-Salinas Highway, at one point trying to ram a CHP vehicle, Nolan said. She turned up a church driveway at Corral de Tierra and looped back around patrol cars to the highway, authorities said.

The driver made it through Monterey and Carmel on Highway 1 and then south to Big Sur and down to Morro Bay.

Sgt. Carl Churchfield of the CHP's Monterey office said speeds down Highway 1 reached as high as 90 mph. At one point, he said, she slowed to 25 mph and put flashers on.

Churchfield said officers did a maneuver to stop her in Morro Bay about 5:30 p.m., and arrested her with the help of a canine officer.

Officers tried to use spike strips a couple of times throughout the chase, he said, but she got around them.

"How that happened, I don't know," he said.

He said she was returned to Monterey County to be booked into jail.

Churchfield said such a long chase is rare for the CHP.

"We get in a lot of pursuits, and the majority are maybe one to five minutes, if that," he said.